


The Danger of Silence

by CynicalMistrust



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Asshole Dean, Broken Castiel, Caring Meg, Cliffhangers, Dirty Dancing, Drunk Dean, Established Relationship, Guilty Dean, Hurt Castiel, M/M, Medication, POV Castiel, POV Dean Winchester, POV shift, Protective Sam Winchester, Sorry Not Sorry, broken relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4982068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynicalMistrust/pseuds/CynicalMistrust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean left home ten years ago to start out on his own, shortly after a bad fight with Cas. Now he's back for Sam's wedding and has to face his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Treehouse

Dean stretched out on the wooden floor of the tree-house, enjoying the faint scent of cedar and the memories it dredged up. He hadn’t been in here in nearly ten years, ever since he’d gone off to college, graduated, gotten his own place and a job. Some part of him never thought he’d be here again. He’d rarely come home for holidays, hadn’t seen much point in even celebrating them after his mother died. But here he was, back home for his baby brother’s wedding.

He sat up as he heard someone coming up the ladder, propping himself up on his elbows. He expected his brother, but instead a head of messy dark hair poked through the entrance, followed by a set of piercing blue eyes. His breath caught in his throat as a slew of other memories assaulted him. Stolen moments in an empty locker room, wandering hands, desperate lips and eager tongues. “Cas?”

Cas stopped with his torso inside, leaning on his arms above the ladder. “Hello, Dean. I’ve been waiting for your return.”

“You… What?” Dean blinked through the shock of seeing Cas again and tried to process the meaning of those words. “It’s been ten years.”

Cas nodded and shrugged. “I knew you would come back, eventually.”

There were unspoken words hanging on the end of that, but Dean didn’t dare believe he knew what they were. He didn’t want to know what they were. His tongue darted out to wet his lips before he cleared his throat. “So, uh… You look… good.” Better than good. Cas had filled out from the nerdy, lanky teen and into a nerdy, gorgeous man with messy hair. Hair he wanted nothing more than to run his fingers through.

Cas raised an eyebrow, a touch of a smile on his lips as he climbed the rest of the way into the tree-house. It was cramped; they were far larger than the last time they’d been in here. “So do you.” He stretched out on his stomach next to Dean, resting on his elbows. “You look very good.”

Dean shifted, unable to hide the effect Cas’ proximity was having on him and cursing his inability to discreetly adjust himself. “You… too.” _Real smooth, Winchester._ Heat crept up his neck as Cas’ eyes drifted down and he knew there was no way he missed his current state of arousal.

“Glad to see I still have some effect on you.” There was a touch of bitterness to his voice and he looked away.

Dean’s arousal faded in an instant, replaced by guilt. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. He was fairly certain the words _clingy little slut_ had been used. “Cas, I…” He licked his lips and glanced up, words sticking in his throat at the weight of that blue-eyed stare. “All those things I said… I… You know I didn’t mean them…”

“Really. Could have fooled me.” Cas smiled, a humorless twitch of his lips. “You know it took me a long time to get over that fight. You were a real dick.”

The guilt racked up to a new level. “Yeah. Yeah, I know, man.”

Cas reached up and touched Dean’s face, brushing his fingertips against cheekbone and jaw before pulling away. “I guess I’ll see you at the bachelor party then,” he said, shifting back toward the ladder.

“Wait.” Dean sat up and clenched his hands into fists to keep from reaching out to stop Cas by force.

Cas reached the ladder and turned with a leg hanging through the opening, raising an eyebrow. “Why? Were you expecting a kiss or something?”

Dean twitched, heat creeping over his neck and face again. “No. I just-”

Cas smiled with a soft exhale of a laugh. “See you around, Dean.”

And then he was gone, leaving Dean behind with his guilt and a longing he’d done his best to ignore for a decade. “Son of a bitch.”


	2. Recital

The next day passed in a blur with the wedding recital and preparations, and Dean was glad he had to contribute little to any of it other than show his face. For some reason it surprised him when he learned Cas was to be Sam’s best man. He didn’t expect the honor to come to him, he and Sam had never been as close as they could have been, but Cas? He hadn’t even realized they’d known each other.

He kept out of the way as best he could, feeling like an outsider even among his own family, especially among his brother’s friends. He nursed a whiskey as he leaned against the bar, itching to get out of his suit.

“Your drink full of sour grapes?”

Dean glanced up at one of Sam’s friends, trying to remember his name. Something pretentious if the accent was any indication. He quirked his eyebrow and took another sip to keep from returning a sarcastic comment. He’d promised to play nice for Sam’s sake. “Can I help you?”

“Probably not. I, however, can help you.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

The man shifted closer as if about to share a secret. “You’re still hot for my cousin, aren’t you? You’ve been staring at him all day, and none too discreetly I might add.”

Dean tensed and eyed the man from the corner of his eye. One of Cas’ relatives. Shit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even as he said it, his eyes drifted back to Cas, standing and chatting with a dark-haired woman who was standing far too close to him.

“Right. Denial. Egypt. Blah, blah.”

Dean was about to turn and tell the guy off when Gabriel deigned it a good time to sidle up to his other side. “What Balthy here is trying to say, is Cas still holds a flame for you, too.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at Gabriel as he shifted, trying to keep both of them in his line of sight. He’d been right about the pretentious name at least. What kind of name was Balthazar? “Really.” He’d only met Gabriel a few times when they were younger. Cas’ older brother had only been around between bouts of running away from home. None of those meetings had inspired any amount of trust.

Gabriel sighed and looked offended. “Come on, Dean-o. Just tryin'a help you out here.”

“And why would you want to help me? We’re not friends.” Not many were, at least not many who didn’t expect something in return.

Gabriel glanced to Balthazar before shrugging. “Doin’ it for Cassie, not you. So get over yourself and do something other than staring, will you?” He slapped Dean’s back before pushing away from the bar with his cousin in tow.

Dean growled and got a refill on his drink, his eyes straying back to Cas again. He was only in town long enough to get through the wedding; it wasn’t like he expected anything to happen, but he didn’t want things to stay as they were. Maybe it was selfish, he _knew_ it was selfish, but he wanted forgiveness, to be able to talk to Cas again. 

He didn’t deserve either and he knew it.

* * *

Cas didn’t miss when his brother and cousin ambushed Dean. They were up to something, but he didn’t bother trying to interfere. He’d been watching Dean far more discretely than Dean had been watching him, though not discreetly enough since Meg had decided to stay by his side.

“I hope you’re not thinking of doing something stupid.”

“Do I ever?” he asked, turning his attention back to Meg.

“Think of doing something stupid or actually do something stupid?”

Cas rolled his eyes. “Ha ha.”

Meg sighed and glanced towards Dean. “He’s bad news. Oh great, and now he’s coming over. Lovely.”

Dean smiled at them as he joined them. “Hey, Cas. Mind if I have a word?” He glanced towards Meg before adding, “Alone.”

Meg snorted, crossing her arms. “No.”

“Meg.” Cas raised an eyebrow at her when she glared at him and they shared a look long enough to be a quick conversation before she sighed. She turned to walk away, but not before giving Dean a scathing look.

Dean whistled once she was out of earshot. “Wow. I feel sorry for whoever has to deal with her every night, am I right?” Dean laughed.

Cas looked at Dean in silence, holding his tongue, reminding himself that Dean didn’t know the dynamics between everyone here. Not that it made it any easier, especially with the knowing look Dean was giving him. There was no way for Dean to know he and Meg were engaged; had been for the past year. They weren’t much more than friends, but they both had their reasons for agreeing to it. 

Most of those he’d dated expected sex sooner or later, and he hadn’t really had the desire for sex since… well, in about a decade. And the root cause of that was standing in front of him, trying to joke his way back into good standing with him by demeaning his friend.

He couldn’t quite stop the words when they finally escaped. “She’s my fiancée.”

Dean paled, eyes widening in surprise. “Your… fiancée. Right, of course. Why wouldn’t you have a fiancée, man?”

Dean was putting on a good front, but Cas could see the pain it caused him. Dean had always been one of the few he could instinctively understand. There was a small, tiny part of him that was satisfied at the pain. The words Dean had said to him that night had played through his head, over and over and over again. Plagued his dreams until he believed they were true. That he was clingy and a slut and unlovable, doomed to be used again and again…

Ironically it had been Sam to save him from the depths of depression, and in turn he’d helped Sam through the abandonment of his brother. Their mutual loss and despair bonded them together, though Sam’s lessened when Dean made his first phone call three months later. They never talked much, but it was enough for forgiveness to take hold. Sam relayed the conversations from time to time, but there was never any mention of Cas from Dean, like he’d ceased to exist.

Eventually Sam stopped mentioning the calls, up until the announcement of his wedding and a warning that Dean was invited. It was to be expected, after all. They were brothers. Though the news he was to be best man and not Dean left him with mixed emotions. He’d protested, but Sam had shot him down with a, _“Dude, you were there for me way more than Dean was. I love my brother, but I want you as my best man.”_

Dean slapped him on the shoulder, pulling him from his musings with a “Congrats, man. You deserve it. Even if she is a spit fire.”

“Dean.”

“I mean, I bet it makes things interesting between the sheets, right?”

“ _Dean_.”

Something in his voice must have betrayed his annoyance. Dean dropped his gaze to his drink. He drained the rest of it and cleared his throat, setting the glass on a table. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like _bad idea_ and straightened.

“See you around, Cas.” He turned, walking towards the exit.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell him to stop, to say Dean’s name again, but he couldn’t bring himself to give the words a .voice. It seemed he was destined to watch Dean walk away from him again and again.

And the worst part was there was still a part of him that believed he deserved it.


	3. Dirty Dancing

Cas sat at the table in the club, sipping at a coke and trying not to look bored. He’d helped with putting the bachelor party together and had wanted something more casual, less loud, but Sam had insisted on something his friends would enjoy. Sam sat beside him with a beer, his first. Neither of them were heavy drinkers, Cas rarely touched alcohol, and Sam either got moody or outrageously friendly when drunk.

Sam shifted his chair closer to Cas and leaned over. “How you holding up?”

Cas glanced at Sam, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” He knew what Sam meant, but he was hoping Sam wouldn’t press the issue.

Sam gave him a long-suffering look. “You know exactly what I mean.” He sighed and glanced across the club to where Dean was sitting at a table with a few others. He was trying to play nice with the practical strangers, but it was obvious he wasn’t at ease, and he’d been tossing back shots and beers all night. “You keep watching him.”

Cas sighed and reached for his coke, though he didn’t pick it up, just turned it between his fingers. “He’s changed.”

“So have you. So have I.” Sam shifted to hook his arm over the back of his chair, tipping it back on two legs and looking between the two of them. “Want me to punch him?”

Cas jerked his head up with a startled expression. “What?”

Sam smirked and shrugged. “I remember you saying how if you ever saw him again, you’d punch him in the face. You’re not a violent person, but I could think of a few excuses and take care of it for you.”

Cas swallowed and stared at Sam, knowing him well enough to know he was teasing, but also that it was a genuine, serious offer. He glanced back towards Dean and shook his head after a moment. “Would be a shame to damage that pretty face.” He looked back to Sam, saw the raised eyebrow, but Sam didn’t comment on his word choice.

Sam drained the rest of his beer, setting his chair back on all fours. “How about a dance then?”

“Jess might get jealous.”

“Jess doesn’t have to know,” Sam said with a wink.

Cas laughed despite himself. “Fine. One dance.” He stood and followed Sam onto the dance floor. The music was far louder once there, the speakers all positioned to drown the dancing crowd in the rhythm, and he found himself relaxing into the beat. The bass thudded through his body and made it difficult to think. That suited him just fine, he’d been doing too much thinking recently.

Sam was a decent dancer, though he had a limited supply of moves, most of which seemed to be from the 90s. Cas on the other hand, was a terrible dancer, especially if he didn’t have a bit of alcohol in him, but he was Sam’s designated driver for the night and there was no way he was risking Sam’s safety. He shifted to the music as Sam let loose, moving closer and dancing around him.

“Come on, Cas, loosen up.” Sam grabbed Cas’ wrists from behind, pressing into his back and guiding him into moving with his hips, waving his arms around like a crazy person.

Cas laughed and struggled half-heartedly to get free before giving up and giving in. They’d known each other long enough they moved well with each other, and neither of them cared about propriety when it came to having fun with each other. They shifted and touched, bumping and grinding and a bit of rubbing.

Cas enjoyed the contact. It wasn’t sexual between them. They’d tried that, years ago, and as much as they liked each other, they weren’t meant to be _together_. They continued dancing until they were both panting and sweaty from the exertion. It was too early to call it quits though, and somehow when the music shifted into a slower song, he found himself leaning back into Sam’s chest with Sam’s arms resting around his shoulders, his chin on his head. It felt nice. Comforting. He closed his eyes a moment, feeling the tension he’d been carrying for the past few weeks starting to ease out of him.

He glanced out towards the tables and spotted Dean, sitting in the same place he’d been all night. He sucked in a breath at the weight of that green stare and quickly looked away, slumping back into Sam even more.

“Better.” Sam patted Cas’ shoulders, pulling away with a grin as the music picked up again. He did his best rocker impression before leaning back and rocking his hips towards Cas.

Cas snorted and shoved at Sam’s shoulder, knocking him off balance. Sam grabbed onto his wrist as he fell and pulled him down with him. Cas ended up straddling his thigh.

Sam grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “Ooh la la.”

Cas rolled his eyes, planting his hand in Sam’s face to push himself up before helping Sam to his feet. “I think that’s enough dancing.”

“What? Why? It’s still early.” Sam pouted, pulling out his puppy dog eyes without shame.

Cas was about to respond when he saw Dean moving towards them, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything before Dean had his hands fisted in Sam’s shirt, shoving him back.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Sam?”

Sam stared at Dean with wide eyes. “Dancing?”

Dean bared his teeth in a snarl. “Really? Cause it looked like you were humping Cas.”

Cas felt the tension building inside him again. The club smelled like alcohol and sweat, but Dean positively _reeked_. “Dean. Stop.”

“Stay the fuck outta this.”

Cas flinched, gritting his teeth as anger surged in him, and he reached for Dean’s shoulder to pull him away from Sam. Or tried to. Dean rounded on him and shoved him back with one hand, keeping his other fisted in Sam’s shirt. Cas stumbled back and into another on the dance floor, offering a hasty apology.

“Dean! Stop it!” Sam grabbed Dean’s shirt in return and shoved back, getting in Dean’s face.

Dean sneered. “Protecting your new whore?”

Sam’s face twisted in anger and he pulled his arm back before connecting his fist with Dean’s face.

Cas’ blood went cold at Dean’s words, watching him stumble back from the punch, tripping off the two-inch step to the dance floor and crashing to his back. Whore. _Slut_. That was all he’d been to Dean, and apparently all he still was. It was disappointing, but not surprising. They hadn’t talked in ten years. They were still kids to each other, really, stuck in the aftermath of that fight. And apparently unable to get past it.

Dean wiped his hand against his lip and the trickle of blood. “What the fuck, Sam?”

“He’s not a whore.” Sam glanced to Cas and motioned him closer. “We’re leaving.”

Cas nodded, more than ready to leave before Sam had an even worse bachelor party. He refused to look at Dean as they headed for the exit, music and blood pounding in his ears. He heard Dean say something, but couldn’t make out the words. It had to have been bad, because Sam started for Dean again. Cas grabbed Sam’s arm. “Sam, don’t. He’s not worth it.” He kept hold of Sam and dragged him away.

“Sam. Cas. Don’t walk away from me!”

Right, because Dean hadn’t kept walking when Cas had said the same to him.

“Cas!”

Cas paused, the familiar desperation in Dean’s voice cutting through him. It was just something else to bring the past crashing in around him. He pulled his keys out of his pocket, pressing them into Sam’ hand. “Take him home.”

“Cas?”

“I can’t… drive right now, Sam. He’s smashed. Get him home.” Sam would be fine, he’d only had one beer, and had some time to sober up. He didn’t wait for a response before hurrying out the door, sucking in deep gulps of fresh air. Meg had been right. Hell, Sam had been right in his silent sort of way.

Dean was bad news.


	4. Don't Drink and Drive

Sam clenched his hand around the keys, feeling the metal bite into his skin as he watched Cas walk out of the bar. He wanted to go after him, but he knew Cas well enough to know when he needed to be alone, and Dean needed to leave before he did something even more stupid. He pulled out his phone and sent an SOS text to Meg. Just because Cas needed to be alone didn't mean he wouldn't need someone soon.

That done, he turned back toward Dean, only the sight of his swollen and bloody lip keeping his anger in check. “Let's go.” He reached for Dean's arm and forcefully dragged him out of the bar, never more grateful for his height advantage than in that moment.

“Get off me, Sammy.” Dean jerked away once they were outside, stumbling into the side of the building.

“It's Sam. And what the hell is your problem, Dean? You promised you wouldn't start shit if I invited you.”

“ _You're_ the one starting shit, _Sammy_.”

Sam gritted his teeth, refusing to let Dean provoke him further. “By dancing with Cas? Newsflash, he can dance with whoever he wants.” He paused a moment, before deciding to let his mouth win over his brain for once. “He can _fuck_ whoever he wants, too, for that matter.” He almost hated himself for taking satisfaction in the way Dean flinched and hunched his shoulders, but it had to be said, even if it didn't stick. Cas had worked hard to move on and he wasn't going to stand by and watch his brother tear him into pieces again. 

“He's not happy,” Dean murmured, staring at the dingy wall he'd landed against.

“How would you know?”

Dean shrugged, pushing off the wall and swaying a bit before finding what was left of his balance. “I guess I wouldn't, would I?” He turned to head towards the parking lot.

Sam followed after, cursing under his breath as Dean pulled his keys out of his pocket. “What are you doing?”

“Going back to my hotel.”

He reached out to grab Dean's arm with a huff of annoyance. “I'm dri-” Dean’s fist in his face cut him off and he stumbled back, staring in shock.

“Stay off me. Like hell I'm riding in your frou-frou car.”

Sam grimaced as he touched his jaw, already feeling it starting to swell. “Then I'll drive yours, shit.”

Dean ignored him and turned, reaching the Impala before Sam could stop him.

With another curse, Sam rushed to the passenger side and sent up a prayer of gratitude to whatever power let the door be unlocked as he climbed in. “Dean, let me drive.”

“Get out, Sam.”

Sam glared at his brother before pulling the door shut. “No.” No way would he let Dean be _this_ stupid.

“Sam, get the fuck out of my car.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Your funeral.”

Sam frowned and gripped the handle as Dean peeled out of the lot with a screech of rubber. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He watched the buildings whizzing past between glances at Dean, a twist of unease settling in his gut. They weren't heading back towards the hotel. “Dean...”

“I just want some fresh air.” Dean flipped on the radio, turning the volume up enough Sam would have to scream himself hoarse to be heard.

Sam sighed, resigned to his fate. Dean wasn't swerving over the lines, but he wasn't keeping straight either. At least they were headed out of town and away from traffic.

When trees and relatively open land replaced the city, Dean shut off the radio. “He hates me, doesn't he.”

Sam glanced over with a sigh. “He doesn't hate you... But he'd like you better if you weren't being an ass all the time.”

Dean snorted quietly, looking back with a humorless twitch of his lips. “Yeah well...”

Sam raised an eyebrow, wondering if Dean would open up more when drunk. Not bloody likely. “Well what?”

“Oh c'mon, Sam. You'd all be lost if I stopped being an ass. Who else could you blame everything on?”

“Gabriel is always a good choice,” he murmured, smiling faintly at Dean's bark of laughter. “Seriously though. What the hell is up with you?”

“Nothing’s _up_ with me.”

“Tell that to my face.” Sam sighed, touching his jaw with a grimace. “Cas deserves better than that, Dean. He's not a whore. Even if he was, it's none of-” His words were cut off by the blaring of a horn and flare of bright lights. A moment later the world was nothing but twisted metal and shattered glass before unconsciousness enveloped him.

He woke, briefly, to the sound of yelling and screaming, flashing colored lights distorted through the air, the detached sensation of excruciating pain in his leg. “Dean...” He turned his head, seeing Dean slumped against the door, blood and glass painting his face. “Dean!” He had to get to Dean, get him out of the car. His fingers fumbled at the door, but he didn't have the strength to open it.

There was shouting nearby and then his door creaked, finally opening before arms reached in and pulled him out. “My brother. Dean. Help Dean.”

“Hey, hey, calm down. We’re working on it. Take it easy.”

He tried to pull away, get to Dean, but blackness was creeping over him again. The last last he saw of Dean was through the destroyed windshield, slumped and unmoving, and then he was lying down and falling into the dark sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, don’t hate me. This is the series I work on when I’m overworked / over-stressed / depressed, so, personally, it’s a good thing that I don’t update this one so much... but when I do, yeah...


	5. Splintered

Cas stumbled down the sidewalk away from the bar, fists clenched as he struggled to keep hold of his anger and indignation. How _dare_ Dean open his damn mouth? At Sam's bachelor party, no less. And about things that weren't even his damn business one way or another. 

But to make it all worse... there was a small part of him that knew Dean was right. That dark blotch of pain and guilt that had haunted him the past ten years, no matter how many hours of therapy he went through or how many times he told himself or others assured him it wasn’t his fault - it never went away.

_Dean's an ass, forget about him._

_You can't blame yourself for caring about him._

_He doesn't deserve you._

_You'll never move on if you can't forgive yourself._

_Have you tried being intimate with your fiancée?_

Cas pressed his hands against his ears as if that could shut out the voices in his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he slumped against the nearest building. “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” he murmured, over and over, voice getting progressively louder until he was shouting. 

The voices faded long enough he managed to stumble into the alley, out of sight of prying eyes. He slid to the ground as his legs gave out, wrapping his arms around himself and rocking back and forth. Two years he'd been off the anxiety meds; ever since he and Meg got together. And now what little progress he'd made was crumbling down around him from just a few days in Dean's presence.

And the worst part of all was he deserved it. How could he have thought this wouldn't happen, that he was strong enough or healed enough to ignore the effect Dean had on him? He’d put on a good show, had even fooled himself for a while, but that’s all it was. A fallacy. And a weak one at that.

Dean may have been an ass, but even back then, he’d seen Dean was also a splintered soul. One Cas had meant to save; at least that was what he told himself. And he'd failed. He knew he'd been selfish, wanting to keep Dean for himself even as young as they'd been. As much as he was hurting, had been hurt, Dean was hurting more, had suffered more.

He deserved to be burned for his audacity. Deserved Dean's contempt from his inability to move on. It wasn't like he'd done such a great job of that himself.

A choked off laugh escaped him and he pressed a hand to his face. God, he was pathetic. How could people live so easily, be so carefree, when he struggled just to make it through a day without finding some way to-.

“Clarence.”

Cas jumped and looked up with a sob of relief at the sight of Meg. All the dark thoughts swirling through his head eased back as she dropped down to sit beside him and it was suddenly far easier to breathe. He sucked in a deep breath, catching the faint hint of her perfume as he leaned into her solid warmth.

“Dean?”

He laughed softly and it sounded fragile even to his own ears. He tilted his face into her shoulder, nodding once. Meg was one of two people who knew the extent of fucked-up-ness surrounding him and Dean. The other was his therapist.

Meg sighed, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair. Her other hand offered an orange bottle of pills from her pocket. “Do you need one?”

His anti-anxiety meds. He reached out to take them, knuckles white with the force of his grip as he took a deep breath. She'd probably been carrying them as a precaution since the day Dean arrived. Just having them in his hand helped calm him further and he let out a slow breath. “I think I'm okay.”

“Okay.” She continued carding her fingers through his hair. “You want to go home?”

“Yes.” He continued leaning into Meg for support as they headed to her car, sinking into the passenger seat with a soft groan. How long had he been sitting on the cold pavement? He fumbled with the heat a moment before she smacked his fingers away, turning it to full blast. He smiled faintly, eyeing her profile. “You're too good to me.”

She glanced over with a smirk as she pulled away from the curb. “I know. You can make it up to me with your chocolate lava cupcakes.”

“Fair enough.”

Meg turned on the radio to fill the comfortable silence, flipping away from her usual heavy metal to the softer jazz station Cas preferred.

He rested his forehead against the window and closed his eyes.

_Pathetic._

That was the one voice he could never ignore; the one that shifted between sounding like himself and sounding like Dean, the one that still sounded young and full of misguided youth.

_So caught up in pining for something you knew was never more than a fantasy that you broke yourself before you realised it._

Maybe that was true. Dean had meant to hurt him. Maybe on some level he’d thought he could make up for his mistakes by self-destructing. 

Cas jumped as warm fingers wrapped around his own, only then noticing how badly they were shaking. “Sorry…”

 _Always sorry_.

_So pathetic._

“Hush it, unicorn.”

Cas huffed softly, squeezing Meg's fingers to ground himself. “Right.” He caught himself before he could apologize again, at least.

The voice subsided and he was able to focus on the music and warmth seeping into him until they got home. He stripped his clothes on his way to the bed, not bothering to replace them before collapsing and sinking into his pillows. He glanced up as Meg knocked and entered a few minutes later, taking the cup of hot tea with a faint smile. It smelled like she'd added honey and he relaxed further at the sweetened scent and taste.

Meg stretched out beside him on her stomach, pillowing her head on her crossed arms. “Wanna talk about it?”

Cas sighed into his tea. “Maybe tomorrow. I just want to sleep.”

“And here I thought you might have gone to a strip-club and gotten worked up so we could move some furniture around,” she said with a smirk. “Shame.” 

“Ha, ha, ha.” 

She let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled off the bed several minutes later, plucking the empty cup from his hands and pressing a kiss into his hair.

Her phone rang as she turned and she grinned as she looked at it. “Oh, looks like gossip.” She winked at Cas as she answered. “C'mon Jess, don't tell me you can't live without your moose for-.... Wait, what happened?”

Cas glanced up at the change in tone, clenching his fingers in the covers. Surely the night couldn't get any worse. He knew it apparently could when he met Meg's eyes and she actually looked worried. He didn't process the rest of what she said, not until she was sitting back down and reaching for his hands. His heart stopped when she used his real name.

“Castiel... Sam’s been in an accident…”

Cas squeezed his eyes shut, trying to lift his hands and press them into his face, but she refused to let go of them. No, no, no. This was his fault. He was supposed to be the one to drive Sam home. He was supposed to watch out for him. And he'd left him there, with Dean. A drunk Dean who... likely had refused to let someone else drive him. He should have remembered how possessive Dean had been of his car, how he'd always insisted on driving himself everywhere. “How bad?”

“I'm not sure, but he's alive and can have visitors soon.”

Cas took a breath and nodded, knuckles white against Meg's fingers. “I think I'd like one of those pills now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have other works to get out in the coming weeks, so this one may end up on the back-burner for a bit.


End file.
